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Tethys
}} In Greek Mythology, Tethys was the Titan goddess of the sources of fresh water which nourished the earth. She was the wife of the Titan Oceanus, who encircled the Earth in a stream of water, and the mother of the Potamoi (Rivers), Oceanides (Springs, Streams & Fountains) and Nephelai (Clouds). Tethys was imagined feeding her children's streams by drawing water from Oceanus through subterranean aquifers. Her name was derived from the Greek word têthê, "the nurse" or "grandmother." She was the daughter of Ouranos and Gaia,Hesiod. Theogony lines 136, 337 and Bibliotheke, 1.2. and invoked in classical Greek poetry, but not venerated in cult. Tethys was likely identified with the Titanis Eurynome, one-time Queen of Heaven, who was cast into the Ocean-stream along with her husband Ophion by Kronos. She was probably also connected with the Protogenos Thysis (Mother Creation) who appears in the Orphic cosmogony. Tethys was later represented by poets as the sea personified, and so equated with Thalassa. During the war against the Titans, Tethys raised and educated Hera as her step-child, who was brought to her by Rhea "...the time when Zeus caused Father Kronos to sink beneath the earth and sea. At that time Zeus and Hera lived in the palace of Oceanus and Tethys, who had received the divine children from the hands of Rhea and were keeping them hidden." (Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951: 96, noting Iliad 14.239). but there are no records of active cults for Tethys in historic times. Tethys has sometimes been confused with another sea goddess who became the sea-nymph Thetis, the wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles during Classical times. Some myths imply a second generation relationship between the two, a grandmother and granddaughter. Indicative of the power exercised by Tethys, one myth relates that the prominent goddess of the Olympians, Hera, was not pleased with the placement of Callisto and Arcas in the sky, as the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, so she asked her nurse Tethys to help. Tethys, a marine goddess, caused the constellations forever to circle the sky and never drop below the horizon, hence explaining why they are circumpolar. Robert Graves interprets the use of the term nurse in Classical myths as identifying deities who once were goddesses of central importance in the periods before historical documentation. Children * Achelous * Acheron * Alpheus * Amaltheia * Amphitrite * Asia * Asopus * Callirrhoe * Calypso * Catillus * Cebren * Cephissus * Circe * Clitunno (Roman mythology) * Clymene * Clytia * Crinisus * Dione * Doris * Electra * Enipeus * Eurynome * Inachus * Lysithea * Meliboea * Metis * Nilus * The Oceanids * Peneus * Pleione * Rhode * Scamander * Styx * Telesto * Tiberinus (Roman mythology) * Tibertus (Roman mythology) * Tyche * Volturnus (Roman mythology) Portrayal 200px|frame|Roman mosaic of Tethys from Antioch, Turkey|right In Greek vase painting Tethys appears as an attributeless woman in the company of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, and her fish-tailed husband Oceanus. In mosaic art she appears with a small pair of wings decorating her brow, probably in her role as the mother of rain-couds. One of the few representations of Tethys that is identified securely by an accompanying inscription is the Late Antique (fourth century CE) mosaic from the flooring of a thermae at Antioch, now at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts after being moved from Dumbarton Oaks. In the Dumbarton Oaks mosaic, the bust of Tethys—surrounded by fishes—is rising, bare-shouldered from the waters. Against her shoulder rests a golden ship's rudder. Gray wings sprout from her forehead. References ---- ----